Fidelity Charitable's "The Giving Gap" Study Giving Patterns of Affluent and High Net Worth Individuals
Fidelity Charitable* recently surveyed wealthy individuals to gain a firmer understanding of their philanthropic tendencies. (They define "affluent" as those with investable assets between $100,000 and $1 million and "high-net-worth" as those with investable assets of $1 million plus.) The results can help direct how you target, segment and communicate with these folks. Key findings include:
Most of these donors do not use - or even understand - non-cash charitable giving vehicles like donor-advised funds, charitable gift annuities, charitable trusts, and donating appreciated assets (e.g. real estate and securities).
Wealthy donors under age 50 are more likely to use charitable giving vehicles/methods than their older counterparts.
Retired wealthy donors give to more charities but give less money overall than those who are employed. Retirees are also less likely to use charitable giving vehicles, and place a lower importance on charitable giving.
How can your nonprofit communicate the mutual benefits of gift planning and legacy vehicles to affluent and high net worth donors?
What do the Ford, NoVo and Kellogg Foundations have in common? They - along with nearly 200 others - have made Philanthropy's Promise! An initiative of the
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), Philanthropy's Promise's goal is to have funders representing at least 10% of annual grantmaking dollars pledge that:
At least 50 percent of their grantmaking explicitly benefits at least one under-served community, which in turn will benefit us all ("targeted universalism"), and
At least 25 percent of their grantmaking explicitly supports nonprofit advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement, as a means to address the root causes of systemic inequities.
You can even drill down to read each participating foundation's pledge statement.
